The State Council, China's cabinet, Monday submitted a law on safeguarding China's intangible cultural heritage for the first reading at the top legislature, the National People's Congress.

The draft law proposes the creation of representative lists of national and local intangible cultural heritage to safeguard such heritage that is of historic, literary, artistic or scientific value.

The draft of the Law on Intangible Cultural Heritage was submitted to the bimonthly session of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, which opened Monday.

(Xinhua News Agency August 23, 2010)